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Major league pitchers slow to warm to protective caps

San Diego Padres reliever Alex Torres is the only MLB pitcher to wear new protective caps now available to all. (Lenny Ignelzi / The Associated Press)

By BILLY WITZThe New York Times

Wed., July 23, 2014

SAN DIEGO—When the bullpen gates open and San Diego Padres reliever Alex Torres is summoned, he takes off in an all-out sprint until he reaches the lip of the infield. Then he abruptly stops and takes a slow, purposeful walk to the mound.

It is an unusual entrance, but it is not the most distinctive element of his arrival. That rests upon his head or, more accurately, around it.

Torres wears a baseball cap, size 7 1/8, that is unlike any in the major leagues. His is lined with a seven-ounce protective band wrapping from ear to ear that shields the most vulnerable part of his skull in the event he is struck by a line drive. It also stretches the lightweight fabric so that it appears as if there is a salad bowl beneath his cap.

The sides cantilever over his ears by an additional inch and the brim extends like a platypus’s bill, so that when Torres, already diminutive at five-feet-10, stares in for the catcher’s sign, he looks like a child who has borrowed his father’s cap.

Since Torres began wearing the cap in a June 21 game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, he has been laughed at by opponents, razzed by teammates and mocked by fans. But he is resolute about wearing it.

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“I’ve been hearing a lot of things — that you look ugly, that the hat is too big, too huge, too fat,” said Torres, a 26-year-old left-hander from Venezuela. “I don’t care about how it’s going to look, I want to be safe.”

The protective cap is made with impact-diffusing materials by Isoblox, a company that is using the same substances to develop protective equipment in soccer and lacrosse. In January, it gained approval for the cap from Major League Baseball, which, like other professional sports organizations, is under increasing pressure to take measures that will result in fewer brain injuries.

Bruce Foster, the chief executive of Isoblox, said the reinforced caps would not prevent a concussion or a blow to the face but could thwart a catastrophic injury by protecting the most vulnerable part of the skull, near the temples.

“It’s something that could save your life,” Foster said.

There have been an alarming number of major league pitchers who have been hit in the head by batted balls in recent years. Two pitchers now with the New York Yankees — Brandon McCarthy and Hiroki Kuroda — have been hit in the head by line drives, with McCarthy undergoing emergency brain surgery after he was hit in 2012. Cincinnati Reds reliever Aroldis Chapman left the field on a stretcher after being hit in the face during spring training; he suffered fractures above his left eye and nose.

It was another such event that had a profound effect on Torres.

He was with the Tampa Bay Rays last season when his teammate, Alex Cobb, was struck in the head by a ball hit by the Kansas City Royals’ Eric Hosmer. Cobb missed two months, experiencing bouts of vertigo, before returning.

“I lived it in real life last year,” said Torres, who added that he heard the sound of the ball hitting Cobb’s head from the bullpen. “I thought he died.”

Torres went on: “I was in shock. I love this game and I want to be in this game for 10, 15 years. But this can happen. It can be today, it can be tomorrow.”

Foster has given presentations to each team and has found some more receptive than others. The Miami Marlins, the Cleveland Indians and the Rays ordered the most caps. Boston Red Sox pitchers asked lots of questions but did not order any. The Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw was curious, but his teammates were not. Yankees pitchers did not seem interested, but Steve Donohue, their equipment manager, ordered a cap in every size.

Some pitchers wear the caps during batting practice, but only Torres has worn it during a game.

“The real issue is that it’s strictly vanity,” Foster said.

Pitchers are the centre of attention on the field and each sequence of action begins when they are ready to throw a baseball. Shifting to safer caps, it appears, will be done on their time as well.

In recent years, wood has been regulated so that bats do not shatter as easily; rules designed to prevent collisions at home plate have been enacted; and improvements have been made to make batting helmets more protective. But in a sport hidebound to tradition, it takes a lot of convincing to make changes.

“They’ve been wearing the same baseball hat for more than 100 years,” New York Mets reliever Dana Eveland said. “It’s hard to want to wear something that looks different.”

There was similar resistance in 2009 to bigger and bulkier batting helmets that Rawlings had designed to help protect batters who were hit in the head. When Mets third baseman David Wright wore the new model, the S-100, after returning from a concussion caused by a beaning, teammates likened him to the Great Gazoo, a cartoon character with an oversize space helmet.

Wright said he was ordered by a doctor to wear the S-100, but he switched to an earlier model because it was uncomfortable. Rawlings has since overhauled the helmet’s design, and last season baseball made wearing the helmets mandatory.

“I applaud him,” Wright said of Torres’ decision to wear the new cap. “It’s not easy to be the first guy.”

The severity of McCarthy’s injury prompted baseball to reach out to equipment manufacturers about developing a safer cap for pitchers. And baseball’s medical advisers, working with the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, established new standards.

Isoblox is the only one to meet them so far, though other manufacturers are working on models. Foster said Isoblox engineers were tinkering with ways to streamline their cap.

Last weekend, several pitchers said they had not worn the cap because of its added weight; its longer bill, which might impair vision; and the fact it will not keep a ball from hitting them in the face.

More than anything, though, they were concerned the caps could affect their performances.

“If I wore it, I would be thinking about that and it would take my focus away from what I should be doing instead of focusing on the pitch I’m about to throw,” said Kuroda, who in 2009 was hit by a ball with such force that it ricocheted into the stands on one bounce. “Also, it doesn’t look good.”

Mets pitcher Dillon Gee is glad there is an option to wear a more protective cap, but he views the danger of being hit as an unlikely occupational hazard, reasoning there are millions of pitches thrown during the course of a baseball season.

“Yes, it’s dangerous and can be life-threatening, but unless you’re out there pitching with a hockey mask you’re not going to be totally protected,” he said.

About half the Padres’ pitching staff has ordered the Isoblox caps. And those pitchers have received subtle encouragement from Todd Hutcheson, their head athletic trainer. He ordered a cap for himself and wears it during batting practice and in the training room as he helps players get ready for games.

“I’m trying to desensitize guys because they see this big hat on somebody and they freak out and start making fun of them,” Hutcheson said. “The more they see it, the fewer jokes.”

But what Torres finds baffling is that, so far, he is the only one to wear it.

Several weeks ago, the Padres were playing the Reds. Torres approached Chapman and suggested he wear the new cap in light of the March injury, which left Chapman with a titanium plate put in his head to help heal fractures.

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